


Impermanence

by AndreaLyn



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one constant thing over many annuals is that things change and never last. Glitch becomes Ambrose but nothing ever lasts forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impermanence

“Cain.”  
  
 _One. Two. Three. Four._  Five and there was a flash of light so blinding that his eyes fell shut in that inexorable slow-motion that accompanied the echoing voice in his ears. He was counting for a reason, but he hadn’t been sure why, other than that counting had been better than spitting out a babble of desperate instructions.   
  
The patient, yet desperate voice came again. “Cain.”  
  
He had been counting to still his mind from wandering to the pain, to keep himself from acknowledging the ebbing and flowing of severe hurt within his stomach. Someone was calling his name, but the qualities that determined whether it was male or female weren’t visible to Cain’s weary mind and all he heard was his name echoing as the world spun around him. If he paid attention to what was happening, he would realize that he was outside the palace and his hand was pressed firmly to his stomach.  
  
No. Wait.   
  
His own fingers weren’t that thin or delicate.   
  
“Cain,” the voice entreated again, more desperate this time.   
  
It was useless, however. Cain slowly succumbed to the blinding light that washed into darkness and all he heard in the steady depths of the unknown lands was the thrumming of his own heartbeat, again and again. It felt like a sweeping wave of water cascading over him, like a darkness he  _didn’t_  fear.   
  
When he next awoke, the pain had subsided and his vision no longer blurred so badly. With foreign blankets, smells, and sounds wrapping their way around him, Cain had the distinct déjà vu of another moment like this one; another foreign place where he’d been kept under a watchful eye while he healed. This clearly wasn’t a room he had spent any time in, but then, in his time around the O.Z. before Azkadellia’s reign, he hadn’t exactly been a friend of the palace.  
  
Snatches of memory were slowly trickling back in to him, making him wonder if this was all just karma for all the times he’d referred to Glitch as ‘zipperhead’ or ‘headcase’, even if it was only just in his mind. It really was a thing that bowled you over, watching the world around you and not knowing how you got there or who was with you. Instantly, he felt more sympathy for Glitch than he ever had before, though he was fairly sure the man had never wanted sympathy from him.   
  
 _“Wyatt, honestly, you don’t need to go over there on your own.” Ambrose had joined him on a walk in the morning, citing the need for fresh air and wanting to experience the O.Z. without fear of being accosted. They hadn’t counted on stumbling across two troublemakers, pelting objects at animals and attempting to beat the living breath out of the other, in ‘play’.  
  
“It’s just two kids. This won’t take long.”  
  
Cain had been on his way when Ambrose grasped him by the arm to yank him back, just long enough to hiss, “Do you ever actually listen to anyone in your life?”  
  
“You haven’t been around long enough to know me.”  
  
“Ever the heartless…”_  
  
“Cain,” the utterance of his name interrupted the flood of memories, and Cain slowly shifted in the bed, pressing a hand to his stomach and wincing lightly, but not as much as he should have. Not considering that he’d been in a larger deal of pain before, when the blackness had crept over him like a blanket.  
  
His blurry vision cleared mildly and then it was obvious that it was Ambrose in the doorway with a bowl of soup on a tray. Funny, Cain thought to himself, but the man looked like he’d gone a round with one of his machines and lost. His clothes were tattered and had blood on them, his groomed hair was out of place, and he looked even paler than usual.  
  
He looked more like Glitch than he had in the three months it had been since all the last traces of his friend had reintegrated with the man he was before the Witch’s reign.   
  
Oddly, Cain felt a flash of guilt about his appearance, even if he couldn’t place why.  
  
“You look like a mess,” Cain mustered the words out, lifting his shirt to inspect his gut, discovering nothing there but a puckered little bit of a scar, with only the remnants of phantom pain. “I look pretty good, considering.”  
  
“Yes,” Ambrose replied, evenly, eyes on Cain devotedly, refusing to move his gaze, like he was scared Cain was just about to up and leave or something. “You do,” the softness of a joke was there, too. It’d been a real pleasure for Cain to discover that even if Glitch had absorbed back into himself, he was still all there; just a little more curt at times and with a tendency to be a lot more patient with his actions and his words both. “Do you remember what happened?”  
  
The irony of that sentence definitely didn’t pass Cain by without giving him the lightest of amusements.   
  
Three months ago, it was Glitch that couldn’t remember unless Raw was connecting him to the machine, just long enough to use his seeing capabilities, Ambrose’s brain, and DG’s otherside tech to combine a solution to the problem in the form of something technologically advanced, which Ambrose referred to as a ‘Data-Containing-Unit’ and DG called a ‘chip’. All his knowledge was implanted upon it and then it was a matter of allowing Glitch to interface with the knowledge and one sunny spring morning, Glitch woke up as Ambrose and that was that.   
  
Cain rubbed at his head lightly.   
  
“Was I shot?” he managed a guess. That made no sense, though, considering the wound was fully healed and it couldn’t have been further back than yesterday when he’d gotten it.  
  
 _“Raw, please, hurry,” DG was begging desperately. “I can help, I can finish, just heal him!”  
  
“Trying! Hurts to heal!”  
  
“Would someone just heal him already and stop talking about it! Focus!”_  
  
Cain closed his eyes tightly. He was heading for a full-on headache at this rate, the way the memories decided to come punching at the walls of his brain. His fingers were still twined in his short hair – a length he felt comfortable with, seeing as the moment he let it get too long, he got the strangest sensation of panic, as if he were back in that metal suit.   
  
“I was shot,” Cain said, more firmly, while he watched Ambrose set up the tray in front of him and perch delicately on the edge of the bed. “DG and Raw healed me and… _you_  got me inside.” Which explained why Ambrose looked like a mess and a half. Cain reached up to brush his hair back into place, coiffed with the rest of the black curls, as if that small gesture made up for all the heavy lugging the man had done. “Is this soup?” he asked, unable to sound more than slightly bemused.   
  
“Your son mentioned…” Ambrose began hesitantly, setting a spoon down in perfect alignment with the bowl. “Well, he mentioned that you used to enjoy a bowl of soup after a cold day out at work. He barely remembered the piece of information, but it seemed to sound right when he did.”  
  
“Thanks, Ambrose,” Cain murmured, already going at the soup like it was a good stiff drink.  
  
Ambrose lingered for some time, long enough for the two men to discuss the event fully, for Cain to ask what he could do to make it up to all of them, and for Ambrose to deny any retribution firmly.   
  
*  
  
Though the wound had been healed by the best magic in the O.Z., Cain couldn’t help his hand seeking out the scar from time to time when the phantom flash of pain arrested him in his step. It had been six months since the Witch’s fall and three since the shooting, when two longcoats who had nothing better to do than be a pair of violent little brats had gotten the best of Cain, who had resolved to work in peace.  
  
He hadn’t expected the gun.   
  
 _“Ever the heartless vigilante, aren’t you,” Ambrose had sighed as Cain made his way over.  
  
“Boys, you want to stop that fighting and explain to me what’s going on?”  
  
The piercing and shocking sound of a bullet ricocheted through the air, then all Cain could hear was the sound of sprinting footsteps. Cain watched through wide eyes while he fell to his knees and Ambrose so efficiently and capably took care of the two boys, sending them to unconsciousness before kneeling at Cain’s side and grabbing at his hand; all the while applying pressure to the wound._  
  
The memory of the event was slowly trickling back with time. As well, the accounts that came from other people helped him, which he had full access to. The fact was that it seemed like no one trusted him to heal by his lonesome. Jeb and Ambrose were the worst, but DG would have been on par with them if she didn’t have her sister’s welfare to worry over as well. His son always took lunch with him and sat around until the sun went down and it was always ever only an hour before Ambrose would amble along to retrieve Cain for dinner.  
  
“You’re all treating me like I’m about to do something,” Cain mentioned one evening while they walked through the large palace halls. “Hate to break it to you, but you and everyone else here is stuck with me.”  
  
Cain never really thought that it could be the other way around.   
  
Maybe it was that Jeb didn’t want to be on his own in a league of strangers, no longer resisting anything. Maybe Ambrose didn’t know how to sit in his own silence, constantly expecting himself to go on and on. It was difficult to think of it that way when the pain kept pulsing again and again in his gut.   
  
One day, Jeb and Ambrose came together at lunchtime.  
  
“We have to go somewhere,” Jeb announced. The avoidant manner that radiated from the both of them told Cain that he was not going to like this one bit. Cain pulled on his vest and jacket with steady hands while looking at Jeb until it was all too apparent that he wasn’t going to give any answers. Then, his gaze slipped to Ambrose, who was all too intently looking at Cain with all the worry that was contained under the suns. It was too easy to get caught up in that look and he’d done it before, when he was Glitch, when he was Ambrose, both. It brought up too many things that Cain wasn’t ready to acknowledge or deal with.   
  
Not yet, at least.   
  
“It’s Zero, Dad,” Jeb said, and even though he’d grown up so much in the passing annuals, he sounded like the petulant boy that Cain remembered coming home to every night, as if Adora hadn’t cooked him what he wanted.  
  
He clenched his fingers at the mention of the name.  
  
“What about him?”  
  
“Azkadellia wants him to pay the highest price. The death sentence. I thought you might want to go…” Jeb trailed off.   
  
The only fitting punishment for Zero, in Cain’s mind, was the only one he knew how to dole out. Annuals and annuals inside an iron suit.  _That_  was the only fitting punishment. His fingers were clasping the fabric of his vest and an unhappy glare had flitted over his face, only dispelling slightly when he felt light fingers rest against his wrist.  
  
“Cain,” Ambrose spoke evenly, and patiently. “Come, we’ll go talk to Azkadellia and I’ll lodge your suggestions. If nothing else, I’m sure a prison sentence can be given to him.” His fingers wrapped slowly around Cain’s wrist until he nearly had Cain’s hand in his own.  
  
Jeb had elected to look away while the two men spoke in their hushed whispers.   
  
“You  _know_  what he did to us,” Cain protested lowly, anger resonating in his voice.  
  
“More than anyone, Wyatt, so calm down and trust me. Not all battles need to be fought with your weapons. Sometimes, words do the work for you,” Ambrose assured lightly, releasing Cain’s hand and leading the way to the Queen’s room, as though he could face anything with that full brain of his back.  
  
*  
  
One annual after the shooting, Cain found himself still clasping at the scar, as though unsure as to why it still ached so much.  
  
He had never stopped to consider that it wasn’t the gunshot anymore that assaulted him with the ache, but instead was something else. Something he wasn’t ready to acknowledge or even attempt to explain.   
  
It would be many months yet before Wyatt Cain understood that feeling in the pit of his stomach.   
  


*  
  
His hair had conformed to a style seemingly on its own when the half of his brain that had been missing connected with the one that had always been there. The zipper was slowly removed in several appointments before hair could grow back. Once it had begun to, slowly it came to find its own style of smooth black curls. Ambrose corrected the wayward tendrils in the mirror each morning, recalling how an annual ago, Wyatt Cain had done just that, when he had been more than a mess in trying to desperately get the former Tin Man to someone who could heal the gunshot wound he had attracted.  
  
Cain didn’t seem to correctly remember everything about the shooting. It was that or he simply refused to talk about it.   
  
He had grasped Ambrose’s arm, clutched it so tightly and had begun to recite instructions like a prayer over and over again while Ambrose called his name, to try and get him to stop, to save his energy. Too many instructions began to cause panic to grip at Ambrose’s heart, not wanting Cain to die, to the point that all he could do was plead for Cain to stop, using only his name, Ambrose’s begging growing louder and louder until the man passed out.   
  
The event had been on Ambrose’s mind for some time, now.   
  
Things were resolving themselves now into the little patterns of daily life and twenty-seven months after the Royal Family was reunited, Ambrose found himself wanting to share in the familial joy they so clearly radiated. The problem was that he wasn’t sure he belonged there exactly. The Queen had done her best to include him in her discussions and had even taken it upon herself to bring in the finest ladies from the various courts to have them dance with Ambrose. That seemed less like being part of the family, though, and more that she wanted him to have his own happy story to embark on.   
  
“He has a lovely sense of rhythm,” the Queen would enthuse while Ambrose and whichever woman he was with that day spun around the dance floor in waltzes and foxtrots, in tangos and quicksteps.   
  
Ambrose would always smile politely, but the sparkle in his eyes was never there and he always wished for a different dance, in which he could follow the steps and find himself swept into the rhythm, where he wouldn’t have to think.   
  
One day, after one of the arranged meetings, he gently took the Queen aside. “My Queen, please,” he begged quietly, searching her face for any emotion that wasn’t sympathy towards his loneliness or his time spent reclaiming lost memories. “I don’t know that I can do this much longer. As  _much_  as I love dancing, even,” he added with exhaled relish.   
  
“None suit your fancy?” the Queen asked worriedly. “And yet, you seemed so fond of Breanna,” she remarked curiously.   
  
It had to be the climate of the realm. Now that a pattern of order had settled, people had resumed the cycle of life that occurred. DG spent her time around some of the young men who occasionally stopped by to learn to fight from Cain. She spent all her time that wasn’t rebuilding a land in shambles smiling and laughing at all their jokes. Jeb had met a young woman some months back and had taken to asking his father for advice on the matter.  
  
The Queen and Ahamo were, of course, a shining beacon of how love blossomed and made life so much happier.   
  
Apparently, everyone wanted Ambrose to follow in the happy footsteps, the ones that even Raw seemed to also share, given his latest infrequent messages. Every single person Ambrose knew seemed to be taking the opportunity to jump forth, to  _leap_  into the unknown and risk their hearts.   
  
“I think you’re imagining things, Ambrose,” Cain said, with that merciless teasing mood hanging off his shoulders like a spring coat. “I mean, think of this way. If the Queen really wanted her way, she’d just have you and this Breanna girl paired off in no time.”   
  
Word travelled entirely too fast around the palace for Ambrose’s liking.   
  
Wearily, he replied with, “Honestly, Wyatt, because I smiled at the woman during a waltz, I’m apparently supposed to propose to her.” He was slumped in the reading chair in Cain’s room, an object that hadn’t been there at first. Ambrose had arranged to move it into the vast space and had positioned it by the fire.  
  
The truth was that Cain spent less and less of his time at the palace these days and had permitted Ambrose to hide within his room to avoid the unending inquisitions that poured in from too many sides.   
  
“Breanna,” Cain was speaking to himself, flecking the last bits of stubble from his cheek as he shaved, preparing himself for a visit out to the home he was building, just on the outskirts of the nearest forest. “She’s young, isn’t she?”  
  
Because merciless teasing was a game that two could play, Ambrose smiled to himself, hiding it with his fingers as he tapped his knowing smile lightly. “You might think that, considering  _your_  age,” he replied, light as air and very arrogant to boot. He was barely able to duck the balled towel pelted at him, which evoked a warm laugh from him as he resettled and watched Cain as he went about his routine. “How long will you be gone?” Ambrose asked, doing his very best to appear disinterested.   
  
“Two weeks,” Cain’s metered answer came after a long moment of hesitance.  
  
“Longer than the last visit, then,” Ambrose deduced.  
  
“No one can get math past you.”  
  
Ambrose’s smile was tempered with something other than appreciation at the half-compliment, because his mind was preoccupied with the fact that he would likely have to endure two more weeks of the parade he had already been marching through. “I’ll have you know that I could have deduced two plus two better than you could, even when I was Glitch.”  
  
Cain turned, sitting his hat firmly atop his always-short hair. “You’ll always be Glitch to me,” he informed Ambrose and that struck him so hard that his breath caught in his throat and refused to dislodge until Cain was walking over to him and clasping his shoulder to squeeze it, Cain’s newest and most favourite form of saying goodbye.   
  
When he was gone, Ambrose didn’t lift himself from his chair for some time, taking his moments to sit by the fire and contemplate just how to plead with the Queen to stop the endless offerings of women that were supposed to fill a hole within him that he genuinely had never thought to fill before. He wondered at her desperation and the timing, because she had never been so insistent before the fifteen annuals that no one wished to speak of. He didn’t need  _fixing_ , he wanted to shout from the highest point of the palace. He had wanted his brain back in order to take care of himself and become more capable and to feel things properly.  
  
He hadn’t counted on feeling so much ennui.   
  
Eventually, he rose from the comfortable chair and straightened his coat, readying himself for the world outside Cain’s doors.   
  
In a show of what was perhaps the worst possible timing he had encountered in some time, he was closing the doors behind him when he found himself nearly toppling over a poor woman, an arm wrapped around her back to balance her. They wound up half-dipped and her lips were perilously close to Ambrose’s own before he righted them gently.  
  
“Ambrose,” she greeted him, exhaling his name sweetly.   
  
“Breanna,” he offered in turn, smiling and offering her the courtesy of a half-bow. Though his hair had grown back, he still could not make himself bow fully, for the self-conscious panic that tended to grip him when he did. She spent a solid minute fixing the loosely-curled strands of her grey-blonde hair, which bespoke her age and experience, despite what Cain said of her. She was no more than thirty-five, but her stories of the annuals spent in darkness attributed to the early greys that had grown out upon her head. “Can I escort you anywhere?”  
  
“Perhaps to the ball in two days?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes shining in the dim light of the hall.  
  
Cain wouldn’t be back for fourteen days.   
  
Somehow, he sincerely doubted he would be let to miss a ball. “The honour would be mine,” he assured her.   
  
*  
  
Three weeks and some time passed before Cain did come back to the palace and if it weren’t for letters sent back to reassure DG and the rest that he was detained, Ambrose might have thrown a pernicious fit over how the Tin Man so obviously couldn’t tell time and just  _who_  was the one with half a brain now. The letter came in though and after twenty-two _long_  days of ladies staring right through Ambrose, Cain returned to the palace.  
  
It was early morning and the only one awake for his arrival had been Ambrose, which suited him well. He had missed the man and was looking forward to recalling the events of the last stretch of time, including his surprisingly enjoyable evening at the ball with Breanna.   
  
The heavy doors were pushed open and the first thing that Ambrose heard was the unmistakeable sound of  _squelching_  over marble floors. It wasn’t entirely surprising, seeing as it had been raining since the previous night, but it dawned on him quickly that Cain had let himself get thoroughly and absolutely soaked, without a single concern for his health.  
  
Maybe that pernicious fit would revisit.   
  
Though Cain’s state of wetness was the first thing that Ambrose noticed, something else caught his eye soon after. While he had shaved and his cheek was as smooth as it always was, his hair had begun to slowly grow out. The lightest of pale blond curls caught Ambrose’s eye as Cain approached and tugged him into one of the tightest, largest, warmest hugs he had ever experienced.   
  
Before he could protest and demand to know why he was  _doing_  such a thing, it occurred with a  _drip-plop_  to the ground.  
  
Ambrose managed a tight smile in Cain’s direction and no words needed to be spoken while the other man just clapped Ambrose on the back and let out a deep and hearty laugh.   
  
Ambrose was completely soaked.   
  
His mind was occupied on more than the fact that Cain had hugged him to get him so spectacularly wet, but between the laugh and the slight extension of his hair, he was beginning to realize (in a painful aching way, the way reality  _always_  hit) that there was a very definite reason why he liked Breanna so very much.  
  
She smiled like Cain did, from her barely-there amusements to her giddy laughs. Her hair curled the way his did and though their eyes didn’t share the same colour, Ambrose had enough imagination in one quarter of his brain to pretend, while they were dancing, that she was someone else.   
  
Oh,  _oh_ , yes. Reality had a definite way of coming to make itself at home.  
  
Ambrose watched Cain navigate the palace with practiced ease while Ambrose followed, observing that the rain had made the beige trousers stick even tighter and made him wish for the impatience and the straightforward way he had about him when half his brain was gone. Caution, apparently, was a mark of intelligence.  
  
Glitch might have just tackled Cain to the ground, kissed him thoroughly, and announced his epiphany.  
  
Ambrose, however, was all too painfully aware of the fact that he had no guarantee that Cain even remotely felt the same way and for all his subtle signals he sent out to try and ferret an answer regarding Cain’s current leanings, the fact that he still wore his wedding ring was answer enough for him.   
  
He had to tread carefully, he knew.   
  
Cain was waiting for him by the door, shaking a towel through his hair and only causing each curl to intensify, catching the firelight from the room and making Ambrose’s heart ache in a way he didn’t want to experience. Cain, after all, had somehow removed himself from the euphoric dance of pheromones that all of the O.Z. seemed to be under. His eye never caught at a pretty face and he didn’t speak about needing company the way the others seemed to flit towards companionship.   
  
Ambrose wasn’t sure whether or not he was disappointed with that fact.   
  
Because, he reasoned to himself, if Cain had been in the market for someone, Ambrose could be a very persuasive man.  
  
*  
  
When Cain left the palace permanently, Ambrose moved into his former room. It was a small balm after three annuals of being wholly in love with the man, but the  _knowing_  that he had been in that room, had slept in that bed, had used each of its facets, that was enough to get Ambrose through some of the colder, darker nights. It had been five annuals now since the reign of the Wicked Witch, as too many people had taken to calling her, embellishing the facts with flashy narrative now that the worst scars were beginning to heal over.  
  
Admittedly, things were better.   
  
People had begun to move on. DG had met herself something of a fine young man in the court and they had their secret sessions in dark corners where they only  _thought_  that no one could see them. Azkadellia smiled more and was even able to make public appearances without bowing out after only several minutes, for fear that someone would try and kill her in angry revenge. The Queen and Amaho settled into their reign, slowly giving both DG and Azkadellia more and more responsibility.  
  
Jeb married one annual ago and Ambrose had been pleasantly surprised to find the young man on his doorstep to personally invite him to the wedding. He had been so touched by the invitation that he hadn’t even stopped to remember just whom this child belonged to.   
  
The wedding, as it turned out, had been a difficult affair.   
  
It had been pleasant enough to get away from the palace and to wear his absolute finest and dance with women (and the occasional man) who wanted absolutely  _nothing_  from him. It was good to see Jeb Cain smile so radiantly and experiencing the love that he so completely deserved.   
  
At the same time, the entire affair had been painful for Ambrose. The first thing he had seen when he arrived at the outdoor ceremony was Wyatt Cain dressed impeccably well in a long suit-jacket the colour of the woods and a completely new vest and pair of pants. He had taken his hat off for the event, which only showed off the light curls of his hair at the new length he had taken to keeping his hair at.   
  
His hair was, Ambrose theorized, just long enough to grab onto. That had been a hard image to shake for some time and it wasn’t until the happy couple was kissing that Ambrose began to applaud along with them and stopped considering the grey flecks in Cain’s hair, now that he was getting on in age even more so.   
  
He didn’t dance with Wyatt Cain that night. Not because he didn’t want to, but because the other man had spent the night speaking either with his son or his son’s new wife and Ambrose hadn’t wanted to intrude.   
  
Now, an annual later, there were continuous letters arriving to the palace and inviting Ambrose to come and visit the Cains.   
  
He had taken his leave from the palace and had taken several neatly-packed bags with him to the small village they now lived in, which was twenty-minutes from the palace and adjacent to a babbling brook that seemed instantly soothing to the mind and spirit. Ambrose took a moment to close his eyes and let it wash over him, soothing his nerves about visiting for all of a moment. When he opened his eyes, Jeb’s pretty young wife was running out to greet him, followed in turn by the younger of the two Cain men.   
  
Ambrose tried valiantly not to let his disappointment show, that he wished it were Wyatt coming towards him with strong and eager arms.   
  
The reason that he hadn’t been greeted by his old friend became eminently clear as they got closer to the house and Jeb talked eagerly about how they had a room that was perfect for Ambrose and Cain himself had made sure of it.   
  
“You had a child,” Ambrose remarked, his voice soft with innocence and surprised joy as he watched Cain step onto the front porch and tend to his new grandson, swathed in a thick wool blanket within his arms. The entire world seemed to fall away and make itself unimportant as he watched Cain’s devoted attention to the baby.  
  
Eventually, Cain lifted his gaze and turned a sunny grin towards them. “Ambrose!” he called over heartily, nodding to the porch. “C’mere and see the new addition to the Cains.”  
  
“What’s his name?” Ambrose asked curiously as his heavy feet lead him forward to stand beside Cain, their hips touching and Ambrose was barely conscious of the space between them. He extended a long finger into the blanket to brush at flushed and swollen little cheeks and piercing blue eyes that he would recognize anywhere.  
  
“Well, Father sort of twisted my elbow…” Jeb admitted with a rueful grin.   
  
“We all agreed,” his wife sternly added.   
  
“His name’s Wyatt G. Cain, Jr.,” Cain announced proudly, bouncing the little one so gently that it surprised Ambrose to see the Tin Man be so careful and gentle, so unlike every other fantasy and possibility that Ambrose played out in his mind of being with the other man. “The G, of course,” he continued, “being for Glitch.”  
  
Ambrose stared at the young family around him, one that had suffered entirely too much loss over too short a period of time, swayed impossibly by such a small thing that he could barely speak.   
  
“For me.”  
  
“What can I say, Ambrose,” Cain offered, as even and careful as always as he handed little Wyatt over to his mother. “You’re a part of this family.”  
  
Oh, how Ambrose  _wished_  that didn’t sting as much as it did. Family wasn’t precisely the road he so badly wanted to walk down. Family didn’t want to pull Cain aside and mess up that longer hair of his, strip him of his vest and descend into a straddle to show him just how much he had come to want him and love him. Family didn’t fall in love with each other and get the happily-ever-after the storybooks spoke of.   
  
*  
  
They drank ale in front of a minimalistic fire in the guest room; Ambrose sitting back and cupping his drink while Cain poked at the embers. The younger generation had long ago poured themselves into bed while the older men contented themselves with the warming drinks.   
  
The tipsiness was settling in pleasantly and Ambrose curled in his chair towards both the warmth of the fire and Cain.   
  
“Do you enjoy it out here in the wilderness?” he asked, sounding far sleepier than he was. It was hard to help, though, when he had been thoroughly charmed and pampered in Cain’s home. Every spare moment that he had, Ambrose would watch Cain with his new grandson and observe the smattering of blond hairs that were now more rapidly turning to grey and the way that Cain seemed to look more affable in general now.   
  
“This is hardly wilderness. I’m pretty sure we still count as pampered citizens,” Cain chuckled to himself, reaching over for his hat and slowly lifting himself out of his crouch to rest one hand on Ambrose’s chair, the other placing that old fedora on his head. “I noticed you’re going a bit grey there,” he observed, a spark in his eyes.   
  
“Well, we can’t all be perfect,” Ambrose replied, holding onto Cain’s look. “Especially those of us who have already gone grey.”  
  
Cain’s smile was as warm as the firelight and Ambrose took a deep and hurried gulp of his ale to distract himself from saying anything else. The hat felt  _right_  on his head, which was a strange concept, that it could feel so right, this piece of Cain’s clothing. While it would have been nice to imbibe in more ale, Ambrose found himself arrested by the piercing pain of something foreign shooting through his head, causing him to let out a yelp of surprise as he clasped his head in his hands.   
  
Before he knew it, Cain’s hands were clasped tightly around both Ambrose’s wrist and one was pressed to his forehead.  
  
“You okay there?” he asked, worriedly.  
  
“I think I’ve drank too much,” Ambrose admitted when the headache dulled, just enough to become a throbbing, pulsating annoyance of a thing that the firelight only served to worsen.   
  
“C’mon, you’re staying the night with me,” Cain ordered, sending both thrills of immediate anxiety and elated anticipation through Ambrose at the kind gesture and though his impulse was to say ‘No! I couldn’t possibly!’ he found himself accepting the charity with weary, open arms.   
  
Cain put him to bed and Ambrose let him, ignoring whatever dignity he was losing in the matter in favour of the light touches and the quiet glimpses he received of Cain in the soft light of the early morning, a light which dear Adora Cain must have seen and memorized in her life. Now, Ambrose was the one receiving it, staring up at the man as he leaned over the coverlets and gave Ambrose that barely there smile.  
  
“How about in the morning, you can show me where I went wrong in carving that toy horse for little Wyatt,” he suggested.  
  
Ambrose was far past the point where he could respond and he murmured a tired word of agreement before the world was a haze to him and he could bask in the warmth of the Cain home, knowing all too clearly that this was where he wanted to be.   
  
When the bed dipped with unexpected warmth and a welcomed presence, Ambrose did his best not to turn and reach out, to beckon Cain closer to temporarily indulge in the company of someone else. He contented himself with the safety that Cain was mere inches away and that he didn’t flinch when Ambrose’s hand brushed his back in trying to get acclimated.  
  
Small steps made up the journey, after all.   
  
*  
  
Within two months, it became heartbreakingly, staggeringly clear just what was going on with Ambrose, though he hid it extremely well to the people who knew him best. He knew exactly what was causing the headaches and thankfully, he was able to contain most of his ‘outbursts’ to his own room and never let it show in public.   
  
Ambrose was losing his mind, slowly but surely.  
  
It was just a matter of time before all of Cain’s devoted and friendly proclamations that he would always be Glitch to him would become the cold truth, not just to the Tin Man, but to the entire O.Z. Ambrose spent his days writing furiously in a gambit to challenge time to a duel, managing to pen out his history, his lost fifteen annuals, his inventions, his ideas.  
  
In a more private journal, he spent his days accounting for his interactions with friends and co-workers.  
  
In yet another journal all-together, he wrote about his feelings towards Cain and how to explain them. At first, he had used prose of the highest order with superfluous adjectives and intense imagery and metaphor. Eventually, he conceded to the fact that when his mind left him, he wouldn’t understand half of that. So he simplified it:  
  
 _There is a man named Wyatt Cain and you love him very much, even if he doesn’t know this. He will always protect you. You will likely always love him unless he does some unmentionable rude thing, which isn’t out of the question. Don’t make too much of a scene about it. It would be embarrassing._  
  
Ambrose set the journals aside and though he briefly considered burning them, he let them be. Even with a greatly reduced mark of intelligence, he would understand that a secret was a secret. He wished this inevitable chain of events didn’t grip him with icy panic, but he resolved himself to one constant thought that kept him safe and protected. If nothing else, Ambrose knew that not all was lost.   
  
Unrequited love or not, Wyatt Cain would protect him.  
  
*  
  
The outbursts were becoming second nature now. Ambrose would forget to wash his hair for days on end or he would end up in a mad tangent about something completely unrelated to anything that ever made sense and the impulsive actions now outweighed the patient, careful ones. The worst of it was that Ambrose had stopped regarding them as outbursts and they were just plain action now. He was re-becoming his half-brained counterpart.   
  
The real trouble was that although he’d been able to hide it well from the outer world, that was about to change.   
  
Now, Azkadellia had met a perfectly nice young man that the entire family approved of and after months, no,  _annuals_  of wooing, they were going to be married in a lavish event.   
  
Ambrose had wandered out to the Cain home, scratching at his head while he fumbled to remember just why it was he’d come out there. He hadn’t  _been_  there for all of an annual, not since he’d wandered up on Cain with his new little grandson. These flashes of memory loss were  _not_  welcome, not at all. When the door was pulled open before he could even knock, Cain found Ambrose in the middle of puzzling through his point in being there, scratching his head until the style of his hair was all gone.   
  
“Fancy meeting you here,” Cain greeted and gently guided him inside.  
  
Cain knew what was happening and Ambrose hadn’t even needed to tell him. One day, DG and Cain had been conversing quietly before informing the Advisor that they could see that whatever had patched him up six annuals ago was slowly slipping away and it made absolutely no difference to either of them.   
  
It had been the biggest relief in Ambrose’s life.   
  
“You hungry? We’re all allowed to eat solids now that Wyatt Junior’s started teething,” he said, and that pride in his voice was unmistakable. Ambrose basked in it for a long moment, trying not to lean forward into Cain to hear more of that voice.  
  
“No, no, I came to ask for a favour,” he said, fidgeting with his sleeve, smoothing it, then picking at it, then itching there. His attention span drifted horribly so and he flashed a wary smile at Cain. “Obviously you know as well as I do that the wedding’s coming up fast as ever! And seeing as just about every last person in the whole O.Z.’s been invited, I think I might need a little help. I think I need you to be my date,” he said apologetically. “Not  _date_ , as such,” he rambled to clarify quickly. “But I need someone there to pull me aside if I start glitching or doing something I shouldn’t be doing. I need someone to watch me.”   
  
Funny, though. He wanted it to be a date and he could have just stopped right there and let it sit as it was. But he had to keep rambling to fill a silence while Cain watched on in clear amusement.   
  
“Glitch,” Cain started, wrinkling his nose at the automatic error, “Ambrose. It’s okay. I’ll go with you.”  
  
Ambrose breathed an audible sigh of relief, head lolling back and forth as he gave a broad and joyful smile. “I promise, Wyatt, you have full permission to just bop me on the head if I start rambling on.”  
  
“I needed  _permission_  to do that?” Cain slowly deadpanned.   
  
Even though Ambrose should have said something witty and calm in return, all he felt like doing was petulantly giving Cain a long look. Somehow, that turned into Cain giving him an affectionate pat on his chest, right atop Ambrose’s heart.   
  
“Thank you,” he managed, staring forward while Cain walked behind his back to arrange food and beddings for Ambrose’s stay. Neither of them turned around, but Ambrose could feel the air thickening between them as the silence drew on and on, longer and longer. He didn’t dare turn and see whether Cain was looking at him or if he had begun to glimpse into the distance with that indistinguishable look he sometimes had.   
  
Eventually, Ambrose did turn to check, but he didn’t know how long it had been. Time  _lapsed_  now and when he’d committed to look for Cain, he was gone.  
  
By the time he came back, Ambrose had wandered distractedly to see the new toys Cain had been carving and to forget why he had dared to be nervous to come to the house in the first place. Cain had agreed to go with him. What was so wrong about that?  
  
Dinner had been held over a small table lit by the dim candles of the Cain residence, Ambrose leaning forward to catch onto each and every word out of Cain’s mouth, wanting to hear all the stories that passed by those lips. To Ambrose’s delight, Cain had developed  _laugh_  lines.   
  
The Tin Man had a heart, after all.  
  
“So when is this big wedding of hers?” Cain asked, lifting his brew to his lips and rubbing his free hand through the mostly-grey hairs on his head. “Think the Queen will make me dress up?”  
  
“And how,” Ambrose noted with a half-cocked grin. “I wouldn’t put it past her, you know, to just abduct you from the dance floor and give you a good spiff and shine before you’re presentable to start twirling your way around with all the ladies.”  
  
“Would these be the same ladies who ignore you?”   
  
Ambrose looked up in worry at the almost angry tone and for a moment, he glitched and thought that maybe Cain was angry with him, but from the look, it seemed that he was only angry about the ladies at the dance who had ignored Ambrose so many turns and spins around the room. Even Breanna, one he thought might like him in a serious manner, had found herself with a member of the current Tin Men.   
  
Ambrose was back to rubbing at his head distractedly, fingers twining in his hair as thoughts flitted back and forth.   
  
“They may be,” he conceded finally. “But I don’t think I have to worry about them if you’re my date, now do I? A former Tin Man and all. That’ll get the realm talking.”  
  
He knew other reasons why they might be talking, but the increasingly forgetful moods that took him by surprise didn’t care about those pieces of gossip and were glad to ignore them to study Cain. It was painful to watch him, whether as his fully-capable self or the forgetful one and he couldn’t breathe at times for how much he wanted to blurt out every last emotion, to push Cain against a wall and throw caution to the wind. If there was any consolation about his glitching, it was that at some point, that  _might_  happen.  
  
Whether he remembered it or not was a different story.   
  
“Ambrose, I’ll take you to the wedding and if anyone looks right past you, I’ll make them see what they’re missing,” Cain offered evenly while he broke the bread for the evening.  
  
That sort of statement sent shivers down Ambrose’s back. It was the kind of promise that held real, genuine emotion to it and it almost made Ambrose want to reconsider just how much that ring on Cain’s finger meant. Was it still a warning sign to any who might make an attempt or was it just a reminder of things long gone?  
  
It sure was shiny, though.  
  
*  
  
Ambrose was still trying to puzzle out just what he was supposed to do when he entered the largest ballroom in the palace as it had slipped his mind just what was he was doing there. The ceremony had gone decently, even if Cain had needed to slide a hand over to Ambrose’s lap and grab hold of his palm to hold it from twitching and brushing it through his hair, again and again. Eventually, Ambrose had started giving signs of fake-twitching, just to get the hand in his again.   
  
The longing had gone on long enough and Ambrose wanted things to change. He wanted them to be different. It had taken more annuals than it had for everyone else, but he wanted the same thing that everyone else got. He wanted someone to come home to. No, not that. He wanted  _Cain_  to come home to.   
  
Of course, coming right out and saying that was out of the question. Even if Cain did look like something else in his finest, the way his eyes caught the lights, even if he smiled at Ambrose with that face-splitting grin he didn’t give anyone but his family and the Advisor.  
  
Ambrose, however, was beginning to think that he was starting to slip; become obvious in who he held such deep affection for.   
  
“So this is where you live,” Jeb had greeted him at the edge of the dance floor while Ambrose twitchily went through the food, picking up certain items, sucking them once, then biting, then spitting them into napkins. The recognition of a  _Cain_  (even if it wasn’t his Cain) in his presence made him pause. “Pretty fancy.”  
  
“Royalty sure does like their trinkets,” Ambrose agreed with a bit of a mad grin. “I think I used to belong here, a long time ago, but I don’t feel right anymore. Like I’m the puzzle piece that’s left out because I got chopped in half.”  
  
“I’m pretty sure my Father doesn’t feel like he belongs either,” Jeb pointed out, nodding to the head table, where Cain seemed to be awkwardly having a conversation of some matter with a beautiful woman. “You ever think about maybe…”  
  
Ambrose gave the younger Cain a suspicious look.   
  
“I don’t know. You could maybe get him to dance,” Jeb finished his sentence. “Mother used to make him dance around the room when I was little. There was no music and he was always tired after his day, but the first thing he did was drop his gun and hat and dance with her. He always seemed happy, just like when he’s with you.”  
  
“You think I make him happy?” Ambrose asked, his voice hushed and elated with boyish excitement, all at once.   
  
Jeb met Ambrose’s look with a dubious one of his own. “Has he not told you?”  
  
Before Ambrose could latch onto that notion and demand,  _demand_  to know what it was he hadn’t been told, he was spun around by a strong hand on his hip, turning him right into Cain’s grasp. Cain was acting strange and completely not himself as he leaned in to brush his lips by Ambrose’s cheek – which was flushing terribly pink – and then the hand on his hip started to brush up and down. This was a dream, Ambrose decided. He had drank too much and had fallen asleep right in the middle of the wedding and Cain was about a second away from pinning him to the table and…wait, if this was a dream, why was Jeb still there?  
  
“Father,” Jeb greeted, bemused. And if Jeb could see what he was doing too, that meant… _not a dream!_  
  
“Don’t start,” Cain snapped at his son. “I told the woman who keeps flirting with me that I already have a date. She didn’t believe me and started fondling a part of me I like to think is private…”  
  
“She what! I’ll defend your honour, Cain, just show me…”  
  
“Easy, sweetheart,” Cain interrupted. “Just twirl me around the floor until she gets dissuaded. The last thing I need is to get bound and ridden by some overeager young thing tonight.” He eased away and shot yet another warning look at Jeb, who returned it with a neutral, uncaring look of his own. “If this doesn’t work, you’re faking a faint,” he warned his son.   
  
“I’m a great dancer, Cain,” Ambrose enthused, pulling him out onto the dance floor without much hesitation and yanking the Tin Man atop his body with a sharp, staccato beat of a pull, nearly toppling them both over. “I think it has to do with rhythm. I used to be able to keep time perfectly. One, two, three, four,” he counted off while cavorting off with Cain, even though the other man seemed entirely hesitant, even if all this  _had_  been his plan.   
  
Ambrose was still fairly sure it had been Cain’s idea. He hadn’t lost himself enough to outwardly suggest this, as much as he wanted it.   
  
Eventually, the music ended and with it went Ambrose’s memory of how they had even ended up there, save for the fact that Cain was holding onto his hand and he was staring down at him.  
  
And Ambrose really had something he wanted to say to him.   
  
“Cain,” Ambrose started, furrowing his brow. “Your son mentioned something.” But  _what_? What had Jeb said? Was it about the baby or maybe the house or the palace or Azkadellia’s new husband, who had a bad habit of being so pretty that he attracted all attention in the room, except for Ambrose, who only ever wanted to watch Cain. What was it? What could it have been?  
  
“Looks like I’m safe,” Cain sighed in relief. “Thanks for the dance, Ambrose. You definitely do have a lightness of foot.”  
  
“I know,” Ambrose replied, deeply confused now. “I’ve been told by the Queen herself.”  
  
 _You think I make him happy?_  
  
There had been an answer. Ambrose just couldn’t find it in the maze of his mind.  
  
*  
  
Seven annuals ago, Glitch had become Ambrose and Cain had been there the whole time with a wary eye and a watchful demeanor, ready to be the one brave enough to call it all off or to hold a hand or two. He would have done anything that needed to be done. Seven annuals later and Ambrose had all-but-become Glitch again, except for a few moments of painful lucidity.   
  
Cain hadn’t changed that much. He would still do anything in the Zone for that man.   
  
There had been small changes along the way, in the manner that everything in the world shifted as annuals went by. Cain got older, the O.Z. continued to improve, and the smallest of things made the biggest of differences. It had been Cain’s most recent birthday when he’d really made the first big change in a very long time.  
  
Everyone had been there to give him attention and gifts, despite Cain’s protests that he hadn’t wanted a  _thing_. Still, he wouldn’t have traded that day for the world, from Raw’s happy smiles to DG’s precious gift to Glitch draping himself all over Cain the whole time and laughing joyously. Hell, he’d even had the Queen in his presence that whole day. He’d accepted it all with a happy smile, keeping a steady hand on Glitch’s upper arm as he leaned down over Cain. The former Tin Man had been sitting and opening the present from Jeb and the family with Glitch’s arms casually hanging down over Cain’s shoulders and helping to unwrap the gift, nattering away about how the Ozian periodic table dictated the sheen of the wrapping paper and how he had invented the gloss.   
  
If people might have hinted that it looked vaguely like they were a couple, Cain would do what he always did; stare ‘em down and ask whether that was so bad.  
  
The thing about that was…  
  
Well, no, Cain had DG’s gift to explain first. It summed up just why change mattered so very much. DG’s gift had been more important than everyone else’s and it wasn’t that she knew him better or that he thought the rest were so bad; it was just that it was time. It had been a perfectly carved, very small, heart-shaped box.  
  
It was exactly big enough for a wedding ring.   
  
Fifteen annuals ago, he’d been shoved inside an iron suit. Eight annuals later he’d been freed. He supposed that seven annuals more meant that he ought to finally take off his wedding ring, seeing as his heart had already decided to move on a long time back. Five annuals, to mark the date exactly. Cain had lost control of his emotions sometime around the age when the Queen started trying to hitch Ambrose off to the nearest willing woman. Cain had decided fairly quickly that he didn’t like neither the sight nor sound of that and though he couldn’t do anything to actively stop it, he  _could_  wait just outside the ballroom after every dance. He  _could_  tip his hat to the departing women and murmur a quiet hello before asking if they’d seen  _his_  Ambrose.  
  
It usually seemed to get the point across.   
  
He thought his heart would have died with Adora. He genuinely thought that his wife would have taken him all up, but change happened, whether you wanted it to or not. And in Cain’s case, he’d met a headcase named Glitch who turned out to be one of the most self-sacrificing, brave men that Cain had ever known. Enough time passed and he was hard-pressed to think of reasons  _not_  to fall in love with the man. After Cain’s birthday that year, he’d tucked away the ring in that heart-shaped box and kept it on his mantle carefully, not wanting to shift it or let it out of his sight.   
  
His room had all the signs of a storm having hit. Papers everywhere and furniture missing and other signs of distress marked every corner of Cain’s bedroom. Jeb had picked up on it fairly quick.   
  
“Is Wyatt getting in here, Father?” Jeb had asked with worry written across his face when he saw the mess one day. “I thought I closed the door in the mornings…”  
  
“No, it’s not him, son,” Cain promised, clasping his shoulder tightly. Just behind him were crates, large enough for all the possessions in his life. “I’ve just been going through my things and seeing what needs to go and what ought to stay.”  
  
Jeb hadn’t exactly understood what he meant that day, but in a week’s time, everyone would know.  
  
It still took him a  _week_.   
  
The first day, he’d gone to the palace to have lunch with Glitch (because now that things were reverting to form, he couldn’t refer to him as anything but), DG, and Ahamo. DG and her father had been all too happy to toy with the kite that Glitch had brought to the breakfast and spent an hour tinkering with the tail.  
  
Glitch was more focused on drawing Cain’s attention to the specific measures of it and saying with careful attention: “Look at that. It just needed a little something else to work. It was perfect, it just needed a companion!” He’d flipped the tail of the kite in Cain’s nose until he couldn’t take it any longer and started laughing uproariously, yanking Glitch’s hands in his own and just staring him down for a long moment.   
  
DG and Ahamo could have been the wallpaper for all he cared. But he froze, confusion and worry flickering through his eyes as he stared at Glitch, who wasn’t going anywhere. “Cain,” Glitch murmured softly and Cain had been able to feel Glitch’s heart beating away so easily, his thumbs brushing over soft, pale skin. He could have leaned in and took a kiss at how close they were, but Cain swallowed, not ready to do something like that.  
  
Cain released him.   
  
He wasn’t ready yet.   
  
The second day, they’d been out in the apple orchard to pick a few choice fruits for the Princesses, who wanted to attempt apple pie, which was (according to DG) ‘as American as you can be!’ No one had really understood what she meant, but she was still the Princess and they’d do anything to make her happy. Glitch had wanted to go out there on his own, but Cain had followed along without anyone knowing.  
  
At least, he hadn’t counted on anyone knowing. About half an hour after they both entered the orchard and the boughs swung back and forth with the gentle breeze, Glitch began spinning around in endless circles. “I know you’re there, whoever you are, stranger,” he called out. “Come on out and  _fight me yourself!_ ” Glitch was full of vigour and energy and when Cain slid out from a tree, cocking a brow upwards, he half-expected Glitch to do just that and attack.  
  
He hadn’t though.   
  
“Cain,” he exhaled instead. “You’re looking pretty old there, doll.”  
  
“It’s been a lot of annuals, Glitch,” Cain replied, very patiently.  
  
He had occasions now where he thought that no time had passed at all and he’d woken up during all their dark adventures. Though seven annuals had gone by, some days Glitch didn’t know that seven minutes had passed.  
  
“ _Doll_?” Cain echoed with practiced and patient bemusement.  
  
Glitch had taken to scratching his head. “I think I used to call people that. Or was it sweetheart? I remember calling people something.”  
  
The third day had been better, but in a way Cain didn’t know how to quantify. There’d been a large lightning storm in the O.Z. that prevented Cain from leaving the castle to go home to his family. He’d found himself a stray room and a spare chair with a table nearby so he could kick up his feet and lay his hat on the nearest bedpost to take a load off. He tended to rouse at the slightest complication, so when he heard quiet shuffling in the room he pried his eyes open and found Glitch standing above him, staring down curiously.  
  
“Glitch,” he mumbled tiredly. “I was sleeping.”  
  
“Dreaming?” His voice had been impossibly soft and quiet and it almost,  _almost_  sounded like Ambrose for a moment. “You should come to bed, Cain. The bed is much more comfortable than the chair.”  
  
For some reason, he’d never asked to clarify just whose bed he was supposed to go to. Not that it mattered. When he’d woken, no one had been there with him to share the sheets.  
  
The fourth day had involved Glitch’s… ‘wandering finger syndrome’ as Cain had taken to calling it. Funny that it only really applied to him. It usually involved Cain sitting somewhere important like a chair in the Queen’s presence or maybe with Azkadellia and her husband and it usually involved Glitch standing right behind him and toying with the cloth at his shoulders or his hat or his hair or (and this was the worst) the small curls at the nape of his neck. Cain just about lost the power to speak in those situations and he noticed that no one ever really  _said_  anything so much as just smiled at the both of them.  
  
The fifth day, Cain had dropped by a professional psychiatrist, as he tended to do on a monthly basis. He had taken off his hat, sat down in the chair, and had looked up at the Doc, who only had one thing to ask: “Have you done it yet?”  
  
“Can’t seem to make the leap,” Cain admitted, clearing his throat.   
  
“It’s ironic, really. Given that I’ve heard rumours that a man named Wyatt Cain has been involved with the Queen’s Advisor for some time now.  _Years_. They say that the two have only recently begun to show the affair in public.”  
  
Cain just levelled the psych with a dubious look. “Remind me why I pay you for this?”  
  
The sixth day had been the worst day of all. DG had been to Milltown recently to talk with her former parents and some of the others who had been involved in the rebuilding. When she arrived back at the palace, she had some new tech with her, in the form of panels that formed a screen. She also had, in her hands, something she called a ‘film’ that was apparently a ‘classic’. “You, Cain, you have to stay,” DG announced simply.   
  
It was something called ‘Indiana Jones’, which she’d smuggled in from the Other Side. It didn’t take more than ten minutes for the film to completely leave Cain in an unimpressed state. Before he could sit up and  _leave_  though, four pairs of hands pushed him back into the sofa.  _Four_. And only one pair was wanted at all. Glitch had started the film halfway across the sofa, but had slowly, slowly inched closer and closer in the duration and kept whispering things to Cain like, ‘I like your tight pants better’ and ‘see, he has an unnatural obsession with his hat too, not that it condones anything’ and by the end, Cain had ended up with his arms around Glitch’s waist, just keeping him in close so that Glitch’s whispers didn’t disturb anyone else.   
  
The seventh day had been  _the_  day, when Jeb understood what all the crates meant and when Cain made one last visit to the palace in search of Glitch. He’d found him in the lab, staring at his brain; which was still contained in preserving liquid.   
  
As soon as Cain found him, his gaze was rife with knowing and fear at being there and it being time.  
  
Cain knew as well as anyone that Ambrose was peeking through. It happened less and less lately, but Cain knew it when he saw it.  
  
“They say it’s lost all viability,” he murmured quietly. “That there’s no hope and I’ll be Glitch forever-more.”  
  
Cain stood beside him, looking down at Glitch and not at the brain within the machine. He didn’t want to see anything but Glitch and he didn’t care whether that came with half a brain or none of one (even if that could pose a few issues). Sometimes, you just wanted to be with someone who was willing to make a sacrifice to do the right thing, like giving up your brain for the good of the O.Z. Sometimes, home was where the heart was and if it weren’t for Glitch, Cain just wouldn’t have been alive to know that.   
  
In the end, Cain thanked all the suns above for that day of lucidity, so he could take Glitch’s hand into his own and tug him closer. “Glitch,” he began, good and slow and patient. “I’m moving in with you at the palace, I love you, and you need to stop groping me in public. People are starting to talk.”  
  
Shockingly enough, instead of a wise remark about the last part, Glitch just stared back at him with that innocent and purely joyful look he got when something was going right in the world.   
  
“You love me,” he echoed, still in full control of his faculties. “How long?”  
  
“Five annuals, give or take.”  
  
He received what was a death-glare at this announcement. “Five annuals you let me sit here and think you had nothing in the way of feelings towards me?  _Five annuals_! Five! Whole! Annuals! Wyatt Cain, you’re an insufferable stoic man who really needs more than a good smack in the head and...why are you looking at me like that?” Glitch seemed to twitch and it looked as if a synapse was about to misfire, but he just backed up until his back hit the door and Cain was able to push his way in and kiss him firmly to seal all the words he’d given to Ambrose before that little fit.   
  
Cain eased away for a quick breather before diving back in, shoving his palms down the back-pockets of Glitch’s pants and pinning him harder to the wall while Cain used his body to seal off what little space was left between their bodies.   
  
By the time he’d had enough, Glitch was slipping halfway down the wall, his knees giving out. “Need some help there, sweetheart?” Cain asked, in a perfectly composed tone.  
  
“You said something about moving in?” Glitch got out breathlessly.  
  
“Seven annuals? It’s long past time,” Cain assured.   
  
*  
  
They didn’t fight much, the bed was never too cold, and every now and again, Jeb would come visiting with the ever-growing Wyatt Junior. Annuals passed faster than either of them wanted and Glitch never went fully grey like Cain did, but that didn’t mean he got away without a myriad of comments about his age.  
  
As far as happily ever afters went, Glitch thought he’d managed to get the best one ever, even if it came with a greatly reduced mark of intelligence.   
  
Sometimes, a person just needed to know how their heart felt to be truly happy and the brain had nothing to do with that.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic of] Impermanence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3823144) by [Dr_Fumbles_McStupid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Fumbles_McStupid/pseuds/Dr_Fumbles_McStupid)




End file.
